Just over 40 years ago my parents bought me a Pentax K-1000 “single-lens reflex” camera. This was a miraculous device for a teenager to own. It not only allowed one to control both shutter speed (freezing time) and aperture (controlling light) but to switch lenses (making the far near and the too-near comprehensible).
This was before the digital era cheapened photographs to the point of absurdity so that anyone can take a million shots and share them with billions. Caring much about composition, or other measures of quality, seems quaint. Instead, the market seems to be saying, show me something vulgar. At least by widely accepted indicators, it is.
I soldier on though, amusing at least myself. I offer here some images of unimportance taken over the past year, in hopes of amusing the reader as well. That they were produced by a smartphone is a rare reflection of my movement with the times. My last version of the Pentax, a Lumix (with a Leica lens!), has been handed to my daughter. The youth seem to appreciate retro. Which is something.
My generally supportive family has manifested some discomfort with my paparazzi inclinations, on account of the indignities they can entail.
Such is the lot of the documentarist. I maintain that a record of reality has value. And an interesting pattern somehow emerges. Old and new, again and again, in a sad and awkward and beautiful dance, as ancient as the hills, for as long as the world shall exist.
American tourists, old and new yet equally confused, in Naples, Italy
Raza Inka, amazing performer of Latin American fusion, being ignored on a spring day in Copenhagen
At least this guy (in NYC) was listening to his own music
Old and new and equally inanimate in New York City
Old and new fighting for democracy in Israel
Amalfi, Italy, as rarely seen in postcards
New driver of classic transport in Naples
New generation, old and resilient faith, in Yerevan, Armenia
Different variants of old and new in Tel Aviv
The eternal man of presumptive faith, exact identity and location to remain unidentified
This benign-seeming hill (Vesuvius, above) produced the below disaster (Pompei, below)
I challenge anyone to tell me when and where else little babies and people in their 80s were taken hostage by terrorists and held for months in tunnels. Every person who rips down one of these posters it a vile maniac or a pathetic idiot. It is not context-dependent.
The Outer Circle of Regent’s Park is among the finest places on Earth. Which is very much context-dependent, because it is in London.
Self-portraits, a few years apart
My latest bird shot, from Copenhagen, Denmark
Yo! They may be mediocre at billiards, but are my high school friends from the Philadelphia suburbs old? No way, Jose. Not quite yet, at any rate.
Goodbye to 2023 with an image from Dubai of the world’s tallest building, because superlatives are clickbait. May 2024 show some signs of an improvement.
